Can Fake Dogs Help Real Dogs?

Can we learn anything about a dog’s behavior around unfamiliar dogs with the use of a fake, stuffed dog? That is the question asked by a team of researchers in Massachusetts, who did a study comparing the responses of 45 shelter dogs to a live dog and a fake, plush, stuffed dog. The real dogs were presented with a neutered, male American Staffordshire mix and a similarly-sized, fake dog who was the same size as the real dog but is described as “having the appearance of a pointer breed dog”. Individual behaviors were recorded as occurring or not (approach, sniff, bark, growl, back away, etc.) and were also later lumped into three categories: “aggressive, fearful or friendly/playful”.

The authors summarized the results by saying that “friendly” responses were the responses most likely to be consistent, in that most of the “friendly” dogs were friendly to both the real and the fake stimulus. However, they found little agreement between responses to real and fake dogs for what they labeled as “aggressive” behavior. In total, 17 dogs showed some form of aggressive behavior toward either the real or fake dog; 8 toward the real dog, 12 toward the fake dog, but only 3 dogs shown any kind of aggressive behavior toward both categories.

On the other hand, 32 of the 45 dogs showed fear in at least one of the conditions, 21 to both real and fake dogs, 8 of these toward the fake dog only and 3 toward only the live dog. Thus, fearful behavior was a bit more consistent than what was labeled as aggressive behavior.

I have quibbles about some of the details of the analysis (“tail wagging” was scored as “friendly, ” although their comments in the Discussion section make it clear they are aware this is not always the case), but I credit the researchers for initiating the inquiry. Note that CAAB Dr. Pam Reid has also done work in this area, although has not yet published the results. I look forward to reading them.

This is important because some shelters are using fake dogs as evaluative tools to ask if a specific dog is dog-dog aggressive. If you’ve never seen work with “fake” stimuli, this isn’t as crazy as it sounds. Just as people sometimes respond to statues, stuffed animals or cartoons as if they are real, there are many cases of dogs responding to stuffed dogs, or even large dolls filling in for children, as if they were real. One researcher in France (sorry, can’t remember the name) painted a silhouette of a dog on the wall and noted that dogs approached it appropriately as if they saw it as a dog, and were most likely to sniff its inguinal area as if it were a real dog. I have a quilted fabric with the silhouette of a cat on it, and I can’t tell you how many dogs have looked up and barked at it. Thus, there does seem to be a predisposition of visual animals to respond to what ethologists call “sign stimuli,” meaning that some stimuli are inherently meaningful to the animal who sees or hears them.

I’ve always speculated that fake dogs, being stiff and motionless by definition, are more likely to elicit fear or aggression than a live dog would. After all, real dogs usually respond to another with some kind of action, whether it is looking away, flattening its ears, or lunging forward and barking. Nothing makes me more on guard than a dog who goes stiff and motionless, so it makes sense that until a dog realizes that the stuffed one is fake, it would be more reactive than usual. Note that the fearful reactions to the fake dog were over twice as common as to the real one. (But also note that the sample was very small.)

However, many behaviorists are strongly against the use of fake dogs as predictors of dog-dog aggression in a shelter setting. I concur, at least not until we have a lot more research on whether a dog’s reaction really is predictive. But to muddy the waters, I can’t resist adding that somewhere deep in a storage closet is a video I made of three of my dogs approaching a stuffed dog, and each was 100% consistent with the way they approached unfamiliar real dogs. (Border Collie Luke approached enthusiastically, tail up but loose and waving, Border Collie Pippy Tay groveled her way toward the dog as per usual, and Great Pyrenees Tulip strode forward, tail, head, ears up and forward, barking what we called her “Announcement Bark.” But that is just one set of observations, and we have to be careful about the predictive value of anecdotes.

There is, though, a very important use of fake dogs, which is using them to train owners how to train their own dog when out walking on a leash. I’ve used my own fake dog often to help owners learn how to respond when they and their own dog see an unfamiliar dog out in the street. We all know how context-depending learning is, and even placing a fake dog on the sidewalk creates enough of a stimulus to begin training both person and dog how to respond. In that context I have found fake dogs to be invaluable.

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: How could I resist? I brought the office’s stuffed dog out to the farm to see what would happen. It turns out that Tootsie, Willie and Maggie behaved exactly (or close to it) as they do if a new dog comes to visit.

First, I let Tootsie out, and she ran toward the fake dog, body loose, and sniffed it from the front, just as she does when she greets real dogs. (She always begins her greetings that way, then moves to the inguinal area only if the other dog is paying her no attention.) She always appears happy to meet other dogs, but then completely ignores them after a first greeting.

Then I let Willie out. As usual, (now, not when he was younger), he went running toward it, tail up, no barking or growling.

As is his habit, he first went to the dog’s hindquarters and sniffed. (A more appropriate response than Tootsie’s by the way, remember that Toots was a puppy mill dog). You can’t tell by these photos, but his tail went down in between these shots, then up again. After sniffing the dog’s hindquarters, he went around to the front, sniffed again, and then moved away and urinated.

Maggie barreled out, also as predicted, with barking full of both fear and the potential of aggression. (We’re working on it; she is much improved!) Once Maggie greets a new dog she is lovely with it; she actually has some of the best social skills of any dog I’ve ever known. However, she is nervous about new dogs, and you couldn’t miss that when she ran barking (ambivalent barks with lots of high and low notes… I attribute to both fear and being on offense.)

But watch what happens here. As Maggie charged out of the house, barking and growling, Willie begins to move toward her as if blocking her movement.

Sure enough, that’s what he was doing. He clearly runs between her and the fake dog. She is faster than he is, and after the photo below she pivoted back toward the dog, ran up and sniffed it’s muzzle. She spent the longest time of all the dogs sniffing the model, and even barked at it after I brought her back in the house.

Interesting stuff. I want to re-iterate that I do not think a similar test in a shelter setting is enough to predict if a dog is dog-dog aggressive, but, I do find it interesting to watch a dog’s response to a fake dog. What about you? Does your shelter use fake dogs to evaluate dogs? Has your dog ever reacted to a model or statue as if it were alive? I can’t wait to read about your experiences; I find this topic fascinating.

OTHER FARM NEWS: No lambs. Zippo. And Lady Baa Baa was due Saturday. Please explain to her that I’d appreciate it if she’d have her lambs soon! But the flowers are finally starting to bloom! Yeah spring….

Comments

Such an interesting topic. I even remember reading about the responses of lions to a variety of large stuffed lions placed among the tall grasses of Africa … the females were particularly interested in the males sporting large and dark manes! However back to dogs … as a ‘joke” I placed a large, more lifelike, stuffy of a yellow lab puppy in our yellow lab’s kennel. I had the puppy lying with his front paws hanging out over the front edge. Much to my suprise, Bond, the instant he saw it, went straight to it with determination, (as if to say, “How dare somebody else be in my kennel!), flipped it over and vigourously smelled the ingunal area. Once he understood the puppy was nothing to worry about he never paid attention to it again unless to lay his head on it as a pillow!

Wow! Did Willie engage in some ‘splitting’ behaviour between Maggie and the stuffed dog? Has he ever done that before when Maggie has met a strange ‘actual’ dog? Bless Toots. ‘Hello. Goodbye forever.’

My experience with stuffed dogs has been invaluable. My dog was not safe to be off lead around strange dogs on adopting. By the way, we totally learned that the wrong way…….so a stuffed dog was the only way the behaviourist could safely assess her.

On presenting the dog from about ten metres (stuffed GSD type dog with pricked ears), she pricked her ears up, stiffened her muzzle, closed her mouth and charged at the dog silently and body slammed. She sniffed it’s face and then the hind quarters. She made absolutely no attempt to air scent or gather any olfactory information from a distance first….horrifying.

She then mounted the stuffed dog, making a grunting sound. I the started to laugh, probably hysterical with nerves. She then attempted to bite it’s face like a toy.
However, those first few seconds told us A LOT…..cue to many, many months of hard work, soul searching and beating myself up for being an idiot for adopting her.

As you mention Trisha, the ‘sign stimuli’ seems to make sense. Anyone notice their dogs react to loose, black plastic bags, or similar type objects, that may move suddenly or evoke the movement of an animal in the distance?

Don’t we all get the occasional amygdala hijack if we suddenly see a shape that reminds us of a reptile or a spider?

I can totally see the benefit of using stuffed dogs on strange dogs for which one has absolutely no history as an initial ‘screen’. Provided the set up is engineered so that the fake dog is convincing, they could be another useful tool for trainers to safely use. Well, that’s my experience anyway FWIW.

Interesting. Most of the dogs I have owned have never acted towards “fakes” in manner that would have made me pay any particular attention to them but I have two that have. One of them was a fearful dog who, particularly where other dogs were concerned, believed that good offence is the best defense. He would also be aggressive towards animal statues, animal-shaped swings in playgrounds and things like that if he was allowed to approach them on he’s own. And now my youngest dog, who absolutely loves people, always wags he’s tail and otherwise flirts with human shapes. (He knows all the tricks to make strangers come over and ask to pet him.) We’ve once walked right up to a shop that had smiling life-sized people taped to it’s window and he jumped against them and tried to give them kisses. Yeah, jumping is a bad habit but it’s exactly what he does to strange humans.

I need to get a fake dog so that I can evaluate my dogs’ responses to one. Your pictures were fascinating. Your post did remind me of an agility trial I attended in the early ’90s where each wing of one jump was a very realistically painted sitting Newfie. After the first several dogs all refused the jump, it was replaced and all was well. (Those first dogs were granted a re-run.)

Most of our dogs initially barked or startled when they first encountered the several life-sized cast iron dog statues downtown. After their initial response they seem to recognize that something is wrong with the “dog” and approach cautiously, usually from behind. Once they sniffed the statue, our dogs usually lost interest and did not respond the next time they encountered the statue. Especially for scent hounds, smelling is believing.

Similarly, Red Dog responded to a cast-iron calf statue by pulling towards it, approaching cautiously, sniffing, and then losing interest. If I get a chance to test Red Dog on the cast iron dogs I will report results.

A local restaurant has a big red plastic horse statue out front. On first encountering the statue my long-departed beagle mix startled from her usual nose to the ground position, ran away, and then approached with extreme caution (lots of stops and starts) from behind the statue. After a brief sniff of the “horse” she quickly decided it was not real and lost interest.

The Pug had a stuffed pug and a helium balloon pug. She did not treat either as animate, although I am highly reluctant to claim this as evidence of the pug’s superior intelligence. Perhaps she just lacks imagination.

I haven’t had an opportunity to observe either of my dogs with a fake dog. The closest we’ve come is Finna seeing and ignoring her reflection at our trainer’s facility. We have however experienced an anamatronic cat on one of our therapy dog visits. One couple had a very realistic long haired white cat toy that made natural sounding noises (likely recorded from real cats) and moved in a nearly natural fashion. However, every dog there that day found it deeply disturbing. They were all interested until they smelled it and then most of the dogs were actively fearful of it and refused to go anywhere near it again. Ranger kept looking worriedly at it and poking it with his nose. The humans interpreted it as him wanting to fix it because “this cat isn’t right.” On another visit to a different facility one resident had his cat visiting. All the dogs that were familiar with cats were allowed to visit and were all interested in the cat and relaxed with the cat in the room. The cat retreated under the bed after the third dog but was quite happy to see the first few.

Years ago I had a foster, possibly a Corgi mix, who was quite shy of strange people, especially men. He was, however, very observant of other dogs and would follow their lead, so was eventually placed with an older couple with a fine Golden companion. Before he was ready for this placement, at one of our adoption events (he was attending just to extend his socialization) there was a life-size stuffed Saint Bernard. My dog went up to him, learned quickly that he was just a “stuffie”, but then settled halfway underneath him to watch the scary events going on.

i have a fairly reactive/aggressive 60lb mutt that i took for a ride to the post office. i came back out to find a woman taunting my dog (laughing with her friends) with a large stuffed dog through the window. he was “attacking” the window and barking like mad. i’m sure he would have gone after it if he had the chance.

naturally, i was livid and can’t quite recall what i said in the moment, furious for losing much of my hard-earned work on getting him to behave, loose in the back seat. she seemed stunned i was so mad, and of course i was stunned she didn’t think twice about her poor behavior. people think this story is funny because it was a fake dog, but i’m glad i’m not the only one who understands that it’s not!

Our little dog Blake reacted ferociously to a bronze life-sized statue of Jesus sitting and holding a lamb. He barked, scratched the grass around it, advancing and retreating until we pulled him away for fear of disturbing someone inside the church (even though it was a weekday evening). The next time we passed it he still reacted but less so. He’s never reacted to any other statuary that way – either animal or human!

My reactive dog has reacted with fear to a basket of toy Border Collie puppies that we happened to see outside a shop; however it should be born in mind that at that stage he was still sometimes fearful of unfamiliar inanimate objects in general. However he has much more recently reacted aggressively to a life size mural of a Labrador.

My less reactive dog didn’t react to the Labrador, even though she is afraid of Labs; we didn’t have her when we saw the toy puppies.

I think we have a toy puppy somewhere that belonged to my kids when I was little. If I can find it I’ll see how they react, though it may be too small to ‘trick’ them.

My sighthound mix is rarely fooled by fakes, so she has responded to a fake dog, a fake (but very realistic crow) and statues as if they are inanimate objects. She is rather freaked out, though, by the toy dog that walks, and regards it with much suspicion. My male dog, like Maggie, is nervous greeting new dogs, mostly because he has been attacked, but once he realizes the other dog is polite/friendly, he has wonderful social skills. He actually growled at the fake dog, which had the audacity to be staring right at him. Of course, when he moved to the side, it did not continue to stare at him, and he relaxed. My cattle dog is still full of puppy energy and enthusiasm and she ran right up to the fake dog and bowled it over – we’re working on her manners when meeting a new dog, because that is not at all appropriate.

With all my dogs, though, I have noticed that statues and other things that do not behave quite right can be scary, even though I would not describe any of my dogs as timid or fearful.

Our local vet office had very life-like dogs and cats painted on the walls of the clinic and I always laughed at my dog’s reaction. We would walk into the clinic, Shadow, a terrier mix, would check out the real dogs in the waiting area and then would see the painted dog on the far wall. He always responded as if it were a real dog. I would take him over to the wall and he would act so let down and foolish when he discovered it was just a painting. He fell for it every time.

All three of these incidents happened with my second guide, torpedo. Once, we were in the Mall Of America and there was a display of stuffed dogs, of all shapes and sizes. There was a life-sized stuffed black lab among the display and Torpedo guided me up to it and sniffed it the way he’d sniff a real dog. It took him only a second to realize it wasn’t real and then he picked up his line of travel and we went on our way. The second incident happened on campus. I was sitting on a bench, waiting for class to start and I heard weird sounding footsteps approaching me. I looked up, and saw a person dressed in the Goldy Gofer costume. He was attempting to hand me a flier for something. Torpedo’s ears flew back and he stepped back until he was right against me. From across the sidewalk I heard, “Dave… dave no!” Goldy walked away, but Torpy was a bit frightened. The final time he reacted to something fake was a Holloween display in a grocery store. The display had this moving princess statue and he growled at it. Marlin was never bothered by statues or fake animals that looked real. He’d just glance at it and then ignore it. Seamus just thinks they’re toys for him to play with. Kat, that’s hilarious about Ranger poking the cat with his nose. Someone’s got to fix it… it isn’t right. 🙂

When my Siberian Husky, Lily, was about six months old, I took her for a walk around a deserted children’s play area. Besides the usual playground equipment, there are several concrete statues of “wild” animals such as lions, elephants, and rhinos. The first one Lily saw was the rhino. After stopping to study it from a distance, she approached it with her body in a perfect C-shape, offering her hindquarters for inspection while she carefully sniffed the statue’s hindquarters.

On the way home from walking my somewhat anxious, but territorial-in-the-car dog, I stopped at the hardware store to get a few things. I came out and heard Olive barking in the car. I looked over and realized I had parked right next to a metal sign hanging on a frame. There was a life-size picture of a dog, as it was an advertisement for dog food. It was a windy day, and as the wind blew the sign closer to the car, Olive would bark and the sign would blow back away from the car. So, she was in the car faced with this “dog” that would advance and retreat as the wind blew the sign back and forth. I felt awful that I hadn’t noticed the sign and parked somewhere else. She was beside herself. I think that episode has made her much more reactive to actual dogs and people outside the car now.

She actually likes most other dogs we meet on walks but does not like a rear nose sniff. She greets dogs head on, and if they try to rear sniff her, she whips around. Not the best meeting behavior.

Love this post! The shelter where I volunteer does not use fake dogs to assess dog-dog reactivity/
aggression, but I own the very same “stuffie” as in your photos BECAUSE of you! Years ago when Rex first came home to us, and I discovered the strange world of “dog reactivity” I was watching a DVD of your Fiesty Fido lecture and, lo. Right there on stage you were using a fake labbie to elicit and evaluate reactivity! Amazon sent us one immediately, and “Stanley” (the stuffed dog) has been invaluable to me (and Rex), and to trainer friend to assess and work with reactivity in companion dogs, and also to teach polite greeting and “passing by” (not greeting). Stan lives in the garage (a fact which makes me a little sad, I must admit), and on more than one occasion has startled me in the dark. “Yiiikes! There’s a DOG in here!”.
Thank you, Tricia for all the ways you help, educate and support all of us who work with animals. You are precious!

Interesting post and sequence of greeting styles of your lovely dogs. You mentioned a problem of using fake dog was the stiffness. I wonder if using a shadow projection that you could contol the movements of would be helpful?

My older dog has always been nervous about anything new or different in her environment. She’s been that way since she was a puppy. When she was younger, a tape cassette fell on the floor and I didn’t see it. All of a sudden she was growling and her tail was up. I couldn’t figure it out. Until I saw she was afraid of a small plastic object that was out of place. She is now almost 15 and just the other night she was happily chewing on a marrow bone and suddenly looked up and started growling. It took me forever to figure it out. I had had a large box delivered earlier in the week and it was leaning up against the wall. She finally noticed it. All I have to do is take her up to it to sniff it and then she’s fine. I’ve never tried a stuffed dog with her, but I’m pretty sure that is how she would react. Rather than as if it was a real dog, but just that it was something strange and new. My other dog, as usual, would most certainly not be able to care any less, cuz that is how he rolls.
A coworker just asked me if dogs can tell if something is on a screen and not real (in my office, I’m the dog expert — everything is relative). For instance, when his wife is out of town, he puts her on facetime and shows it to his dog. The dog has no reaction. He wondered if the dog could tell she wasn’t really there. Or if dogs can tell that what is on the TV isn’t real. I had no idea. So much for the dog expert label.
But to get back to the question: I think fake dogs may be more reliable at telling how a dog reacts to strange objects rather than another dog.

A neighbor installed a concrete pig in his front yard, about the size of a 50 lb dog. It is in a slightly forward-leaning, very assertive looking pose. My timid and slightly leash-reactive Aussie mix wouldn’t even walk past it on the sidewalk when we approached from the front. After going around the block, he let me approach from the rear, but remained as far away as possible at the end of his 6 foot leash. The next day, as we approached from the front, he did a noticeable double-take and apparently realized it was fake. He’s never given it a moment’s notice since then.

These stories are so interesting! I’ve never seen my dogs interact with a lifelike phony, so I can’t add to the discussion in that way, but I find it absolutely fascinating how dog reactions may or may not be predictive of their reactions to other dogs- I would have assumed that reaction to a toy dog would not be a good indicator at all of a dog’s potential reaction to real dogs, since I’ve so often witnessed how dog greeting behavior is often so contingent on exchanged social signals.

Now that you say it though, it does make sense to me that a dog would be more likely to show a “false positive” for fear/aggression when faced with the inherent creep factor of a fake than a “false negative”. I can totally see how a dog who greets a dummy in a friendly way is unlikely to be unfriendly to a real dog.

I’m also intrigued by what such a test – reacting to a lifelike fake animal- can tell us about our dogs’ general personalities and approaches to life. Are they fooled or not? Are they creeped out or not? How fast to they recover if they are creeped out? I think the answers to all of these questions could potentially give us lots of insights into how our dogs see and think about the world.

For instance, of my two, Sandy is generally more reactive. She has a bigger reaction to startling or threatening stimuli and once frightened, remains upset much longer than Otis. BUT, she is less socially sensitve by a mile- when she greets a new dog, her m.o. is to trot straight in, tail wagging, friendly body language waving, and engage straight away. Her approach and greeting is very polite, but also very direct, with no hesitation, regardless of the other dog’s social signals as she approaches (the exception being a big fearful or hostile display, which she almost never encounters in our regular activities). She’s more likely than Otis to just blithely trot up to something potentially weird without noticing anything amiss.

Otis is more sensitive to social signals, and more reactive to “oddness” in the world around him. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if he was one of the “false positives” who reacted badly to a dummy, despite having excellent social skills with real dogs. However, unlike Sandy, Otis recovers very quickly from being alarmed or suspicious. Years ago he absolutely flipped out about a piece of construction equipment parked in such a way as to appear to be looming ominously over a ridge at the dog park. He pulled out all the stops, staring, barking, trying to block everyone (dog and human) away from it, piloerecting, the works. However, the minute I walked up and touched it despite his vociferous objection, he deflated like a balloon, gave it a quick sniff, and trotted nonchalantly off without a backward glance .

I have to think that used in a nuanced way, this type of test does tell us something about how dogs behave in the world. I can’t wait to hear more!

My dogs generally will not react to stuffed animals unless they are at a distance and they see only a animal shape then they will bark until they get close enough to see it doesn’t move. Then they are not interested. . A robotic dog scares one of my Border Collie s who runs to her crate.. In my opinion use of a stuffed dog to test aggression would not be very reliable. It might be an indicator for some dogs but others not at all and the reaction to a real dog might be a big surprise. Also, it seems we are mostly talking about large stuffed dogs. Some dogs are aggressive toward small dogs.

LisaW story reminds me of something I had forgotten. There is one walk we take past a house that has two large stone statues of a hound type dog on top of the wall on either side of the gate, almost like they are guarding. They are not in my dog’s line of sight, but on the odd occasion where she has looked up she always barks at them, gets no reaction and then moves on!

It’s funny, my girl is terrified of human-shaped statues/cut outs–she will growl at them, bark deep, aggressive barks, and approach with her hackles up–but that’s a behavior that she has never once shown toward real people. In fact, her approach to real people (and dogs) is low and submissive with a deep tail swing and total, panting excitement. In other situations where she’s nervous about something, she’s more submissive than anything (scary stumps or blowing plastic bags are approached with a low, wiggly body). It’s odd to me that the aggression is reserved solely for human shapes.

We’ve only encountered one dog statute, and she approached low and submissively, with a long swinging tail, and then sniffed its back end before moving on.

I wonder if there would be a difference if the stuffed dog was a golden retriever instead of a Rottweiler or GSD (which are the 2 that I usually see used)…or for that matter if it was of a chihuahua or yorkie, if size makes a difference at all. Altho since most dogs are used to stuffed toys, they probably wouldn’t respond at all to a stuffed smaller dog. Hmmmmm.

I have been diligently working on resocializing my fear aggressive rescue and was wondering what your thoughts were on using fake dogs for that as opposed to just evaluating with them? My concern is that she will get comfortable with the fake dog and then instead of being calm when meeting real dogs, she will get even more afraid when a real dog does something the stuffed dog wouldn’t, like move or try to greet her. She has been in classes with other dogs for about a year now but she does not have any actual contact with the other dogs and will get scared if she is allowed to watch them.

My 30lb mutt, Pippa, regularly encountered two dog statues on our daily walk. One was a Retriever, which she only investigated once, approaching cautiously (she’s somewhat fearful) but eventually working up her courage to give it a thorough going-over before deciding it was fake and moving on to the other statue, a German Shepherd. She didn’t waste time being fearful with the second statue and sniffed it over much like the Retriever. What intrigued me was that she repeatedly (day after day) went to check out the GSD, but never bothered with the Retriever again. Perhaps the GSD was more lifelike or had been “perfumed” by other dogs, but I never figured out why she was more drawn to that one. After a couple months, she stopped checking in with the GSD even. She was also upset by a nativity that suddenly showed up in someone’s yard last Christmas, but braved the fear, approached, and attempted to pee on it (I pulled her away obviously). I also encouraged her to check out a large dragon statue one of my neighbors had, but she never showed any interest or fear about the dragon.

I use a fake dog during my Reactive Dog Protocol. This is introduced around Lesson #4 or 5 after they have learned strong foundational exercises that include body language, attention and distance. I work this dog at one end of the studio while my client works their dog at the other end. As soon as we can get within 45 feet of each other and client’s dog is working happily with client while fake dog is 45 feet away, then I bring in a real dog to work the protocol. I have done it this way for 3 years now and have been able to keep client’s dogs under threshold somewhere around 90 ish% of the time:)
Then the real work begins with the real dog and we are able to bridge the distance in a few more sessions. Fun Stuff!

I’m quite sure Badger (almost 1 year old, 11lbs, intact male rat terrier) would be nervous about the fake dog, with fear + aggression barking, like Maggie. He’d also be very curious. I think he’d react the same way he would toward a real dog.

He didn’t get much socializing as a puppy because of his broken leg, and now we’re trying to play catch-up. He’s good with small dogs, though to my eyes a bit obsessed with rear sniffing. He was put in his place for being too nosy by a young aussie, and since then he’s been both more scared and more aggressive with big dogs, which is dangerous. Fortunately they’ve all been nice and just ignored him.

He’s reactive towards inanimate objects, too, though. When new things come in the house (anything too big to put in his mouth and carry around), he barks (high-pitched) and seems nervous. He’s not scared of the broom, per se, but if I leave it resting in a corner where it isn’t usually, he’ll bark at it.

I think there’s a whole heck of a lot that we don’t yet know about what goes on in dog’s minds. It’s pretty clear that dogs have active imaginations. Much of their play involves pretending to hunt or fight, punctuated with lots of play bows to say that they’re just playing, no harm intended. One of the best ways to exercise a dog is with a flirt pole and it’s pretty clear that the dog knows he’s chasing a toy or something that isn’t alive. Dogs are also highly superstitious, making strong correlations between places or things and particular events, especially negative or scary ones. And, much a some people like to say that dogs live solidly in the here and now, without dwelling on the past or worrying about the future, those of us who work with fearful and reactive dogs see how dogs do, indeed, worry about what may happen if they try something new or do something differently. It seems that past experience may contribute to present anxiety.

I think we see a lot of fascinating stuff when dogs encounter fake dogs. Surely they know that these are not real animals. Their sense of smell is so highly tuned that it must be obvious that the fake isn’t a living creature. Yet they frequently respond to fake dogs as though they might be real. That happens when the toy is at a distance and it also happens when close up. I’ve seen it many times with my own female dogs who engage in a lot of nurturing behaviour with stuffed toy puppies or puppy-like toys. They do it when they’re months away from being in season and they do it after being spayed, too. My dog Penny has some very strong ideas about what is and isn’t appropriate for a stuffed toy golden retriever that’s as big as she is. That toy is not allowed to be on any of the furniture including coffee tables and the dining table. It’s also not allowed to lie underneath the coffee table in the living room–a favourite spot for both of my dogs. Penny sometimes engages in frequent, long sessions, humping the toy retriever from every possible angle, then dragging it under the piano (not a favourable resting place).

I’ve read about dogs’ solo play with toys interpreted as rehearsing predator-prey behaviour, but nothing about rehearsing nurturing or maternal behaviour except from some people who advise taking all of a dog’s toys and comfort objects away if she might be having a false pregnancy. Perhaps it’s just easier to focus on prey behaviour since all dogs engage in it to some degree. Or maybe researchers are more comfortable with predator-prey activity?

My reactive dog group ended up with quite a variety of fake dogs, because they were so useful for getting new handlers/dogs started. Most of our dogs acted very similarly to the way they did with real dogs. A few were notably more scared of the weird new thing, though I couldn’t tell you for sure if that was because it was a ‘weird novel thing’ or a ‘weird-acting dog.’ Equally of note, almost all the humans in the group tended to treat the fake dogs as though they had aspects of realness too — we named them, spoke of them fondly, handled them with care, and occasionally petted them in an absent-minded way.

Recently, I’ve been walking dogs at my local shelter. The shelter sits at the end of a rural/residential road, so there’s only one way to walk the dogs. There are various potentially-exciting things to see along the road — llamas, horses, a couple of yard dogs — so I watch the dogs I’m walking carefully to make sure they are comfortable. About halfway up the street, one of the home-owners has decorated her fence with three wooden cut-outs that depict a woman chasing two kids with a rolling pin raised over her head. Every so often, one of the dogs I walk has a marked response to the cut-outs. The little beagle mix this morning went wide-eyed and had to curve his body around in a very careful semi-circle until he could sniff the heels of the woman silhouette, then relaxed and carried on. This is not consistent with the way he greets new people, although as far as I know, he’s never met a real woman who was brandishing a rolling pin at him. Just like with people, I suspect there’s an uncanny valley effect — things that are almost real, but not quite, are actually more spooky than things that are transparently fake.

For the last 9+ years, I’ve taught behavior classes (Feisty Fido and Control Unleashed) in a dog training studio used by several instructors. One of the instructors bought a couple of fake Rotties for use in private sessions. As a result, these stuffed dogs are always in the room. I usually manage to neutralize them (usually I put them up high, turned over), but I’ve forgotten to do this on quite a few occasions over the years. As a result, I have seen many (probably a couple dozen by now) dogs respond to these dogs.

In most cases, these were dogs I’d previously seen around a real dog. I’d assessed them with my dog, or seen them in class with other dogs, or seen them in private, or some combination thereof.

I don’t have numbers, but I will say that (1) I got a LARGE number of “false positives,” dogs who charged or lunged/barked/hackled/grabbed and shook/cringed, etc. in response to the fake dogs who have never done anything like this when seeing a real dog. They might be crappy greeters, they might be studious ignorers; they might be fearful-acting with real dogs but went ballistically aggressive at the fake dog; etc. But in any case, they had a dramatically bigger/worse response to the fake dog than any real dog. And (2) dogs who reacted about the same as to a real dog, whether nonchalant, cautious, or aggressive. Very few had no reaction, but socially savvy, confident ones usually approach with a little visible trepidation, sniff, and forget about it (not a dog, not relevant, appears to be the conclusion).

The overreactors also tended to include those dogs who reacted intensely to seeing themselves in the mirrors. A very few dogs who see themselves in the mirror can’t seem to get over it; most are interested for 1 second to a few minutes, and then move on.

Anyway, my impression is that the ratio of (dogs who react FAR MORE to the stuffed dog than to a real dog) to (dogs who react about the same + dogs who react less) is at least 2:1 or 3:1. This is a big, big, big false positive rate!

Obviously this is not a systematic study, but OTOH, because these encounters have usually been accidental, there was nothing in my or the dog’s handler’s body language cuing them about or preparing them for an impending encounter. These have been both on (most) and off (a few) leash. One particularly upsetting encounter was a pit bull X whom I’ve worked with for a couple years (her mom appreciates the ongoing support of class, the dog is not bad). She has been in a couple of damage-free scuffles and inflicted one minor bite in an ongoing day care conflict (no more day care, not to worry), and can be loud on leash. She’s four and she’s never been in a bad fight despite a few opportunities. She’s just a typical bull-in-a-china-shop, dorky pit bull! Well, this dog charged the stuffed Rottie, grabbed it by the neck, took it down and shook the bejesus out of it — she does not do this with toys, and she does not do this with dogs. Her sensitive mom was freaked, but I pointed out this was not realistic.

I felt bad about that as it stressed out this dog’s owner hugely. And if someone had uses this tool to assess her dog, we’d have a hella stressed owner, a dog in a muzzle, and worse quality of life for everyone.

So yeah…not a fan!

I absolutely can use these for practicing handling skills and dog coping skills (auto watch, Look At That, U turns, BAT, etc.), but not for assessment.

Years ago, while socializing my young standard poodle, Jack, I took him for a walk in town. As we strolled by the fire station, he spotted a concrete statue of a Dalmatian and ran up to it with great excitement. Several minutes of sniffing both ends of the stiff and unresponsive subject eventually inspired Jack to give his best play bows. Still, the Dal ignored him. Finally, he tried muzzle punching it in the eye. Still no effect. I looked up at this point to see the entire fire department lined up in the glass window laughing at my puppy.

I have a stuffed dog that I use to practice the Look at That game and BAT when I’m not able or ready to use a live dog. It never fails that when I use this fake dog other people momentarily think it is real. The CEO and VP of my shelter once ran down from a second story office to help wrangle my fake dog after seeing him standing unattended in the parking lot! My interpretation is that dogs also have this knee-jerk reaction and at least initially, think the dog is real. That being said, however, I think the stiffness of the fake dog is worrisome and would skew behavior evaluation results.

Two years ago I adopted an Am Staff that the shelter deemed dog-aggressive. I had a good trainer do an evaluation and she used a stuff dog. My dog ran up to it and sniffed the face, then the back side, then up to the face again. The trainer thought his approach was too strong but a very good sign that he did not go for the throat as she had seen some dogs do. When out walking near shops he always thinks fake animals may be real and approaches to investigate. Fast forward a year or so after I’d been desensitizing my dog to other dogs in proximity (still no meeting) at group training that we did at an unnamed franchise dog training facility. The trainer there wanted to see if he had progressed but the difference is she moved the fake dog around quite a bit which my dog perceived as obviously threatening because he viciously attacked it in full view of all the other clients (who were then appalled at my dog). The trainer continued to move the dog maybe in effort to get it away and yelled at me to try and throw treats for my dog. The ‘attack’ only stopped once I picked up the fake dog and threw it over the railing. My dog was then back to his normal self. Afterward I was saddened at the whole episode and worried my dog had now regressed from whatever progress we had made. I’m convinced that inexperienced trainer should not have moved the dog around because it being stiff made it look challenging to my dog. I should note that my dog has passed his C.G.C. test and is better around dogs than ever. Only occasionally will he not like a dog but then only gives a warning growl.

Muddy waters, sigh. I imagine Trisha has at least ten things going on which are more important than the weekly blog posts she so graciously writes, so I do take this with a grain of salt. But something here still rubs me the wrong way. I don’t know exactly why… perhaps because I’ve thought about the fake dogs for a long time and was excited to see research. Many thanks to the researchers and to Trisha! Perhaps my own bias leaves me unsettled- to me, using the fake dogs in a shelter evaluation setting at best adds very limited information about a dog and at worst strikes me as a giving the illusion of knowledge to those desperately, and maybe insensitively, seeking to find out more. I totally sympathize with shelters and wish there was a way to make their jobs easier. I totally sympathize with trainers and am glad that stuffed dogs may be making their jobs easier. I also do think it’s interesting to observe how an animal reacts to a variety of stimuli in a scientific way. The world far from black and white, yes, but still, this is a lot to talk about at once and I’m not sure what to make of it… In very brief summary, it reads: Research shows the consistencies and inconsistencies of fake dog evals, shelters should proceed with caution. Anecdotes are not data. Some dogs react to fakes as if they were real. Trainers find this useful as a trigger in beh’r. mod. Interesting, yes? What are your anecdotes?
So, huh. I hope I’m not being nitpicky, and that my confusion is somewhat accurately communicated. I don’t know if separate posts would have been more helpful in bringing a bit of clarity and/or sensitivity to the issue. But my gut reacts to talking about what dogs do with fake dogs in shelters at the same time as talking about what dogs do in the big wide world furthers notions that behavior of one context predictably transfers to others. Perhaps at some point I lost my ability to distance my emotions from shelter dog behavior since in the past I could look at their reactions to fake dogs and say, “Oh interesting,” and possibly draw from it throughout the process. Somewhere it became less interesting and more insensitive seeming to subject a stressed, uprooted, isolated animal to this sort of test in this context.

Fascinating comments. The take away messages to me are that 1) Fake dogs do not seem to be reliable predictors of a dog’s response toward a real, unfamiliar dog. They may be for a few seconds in some cases (note my own dog’s reactions), but the responses are highly varied; some dogs appear to react congruently, others not. And yes, indeed, absolutely, it is notable that fake dogs are inherently stiff and rigid, which is a visual signal of, at minimum, being on alert, or, at worst, of imminent aggression. That is probably why some dogs are more aggressive (initially) to fake dogs than real ones.

One of the aspects of this issue that I find fascinated is its relationship to what ethologists call “sign stimuli.” SS’s are the “essential features” of a stimulus that elicit an automatic response. Baby cuckoos are fed by the adults of other species because the parents can’t help but react to the sight of a gaping mouth. Geese will let their own eggs die if you put a larger egg-shaped wood carving with the right marking on it outside of the nest. The mother bird will react to the SS of the fake egg, and because it is larger, will ignore her own eggs to retrieve the larger, fake one. (Called a Supernormal SS.) A species of beetle in Australia was in danger of extinction because a brand of beer had an orange, bumpy bottle that replicated the exoskeleton of the females. (http://news.discovery.com/animals/beetles-dying-beer-bottles-111003.htm). The males couldn’t resist the huge bottles and ignored the females. I could go on, but you get the idea… And a dog-like silhouette and round eyes are stimuli that elicit an automatic response from person and dog alike, at least until our prefrontal cortex has time to sort it out and realize that it is fake. Ah, the joys of biology!

However 2) note the comments by people who have found fake dogs to be extremely helpful in the training process if they do have dogs who are reactive to others. That is also how I found it useful. I suggest not dismissing the value of ‘stimulus dogs’ until you’ve listened to those who have found them useful.

To Jayni B: I am so sorry to hear about your negative experience. I think it illustrates the biggest problem I’ve seen with anything fake that is used around dogs–it is simply too easy to ‘over use’ them. Dogs pushed away too many times from a food bowl with a fake hand, dogs ‘attacked’ by fake dogs. None of these things would ever happen if one was using your own hand, or a real dog. (I used my own hand for food bowl tests for over 10 years–believe me, if a dog ever even went stiff when I had my hand near it’s bowl, I was done. Better for me, and better, I now think, for the dog too.)

“Mori’s original hypothesis states that as the appearance of a robot is made more human, some observers’ emotional response to the robot will become increasingly positive and empathic, until a point is reached beyond which the response quickly becomes that of strong revulsion. However, as the robot’s appearance continues to become less distinguishable from that of a being, the emotional response becomes positive once again and approaches human-to-human empathy levels.”
Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley

I think the term “valley” refers to the sharp dip in the chart where it indicates people become quickly revulsed. This is one of those things you always knew was true, but never heard it actually documented. I’m with you on ventriquilist dummies.

I have used stuffed dogs in shelter work, in assessing dogs from cruelty situations for the ASPCA, and in my current work as a behavior consultant. I find them very valuable – we generally used the stuffed yellow Labrador when assessing fight bust dogs, as the eyes and nose are visible from a distance, and it is about the size and shape of the dogs they were used to fighting.

I don’t know if I can post videos here, but this is how I keep my current “helper” dog (a Rottweiler just like yours!) smelling like a real dog. I think scent cues are pretty important. My pit bull, Theodore, came from a large dogfighting bust a couple of years ago. He would have been the worst fighting dog ever – he uses the same playful moves on real dogs, and both he and Rocky the Rottweiler are wonderful helpers in working with reactive dogs!

I was just wondering what Trish thinks about Susan Steinberg and her work at shelters in using fake dogs in her assessments ? In fact , Susan finds fake dogs as viable way in observing dog-dog encounters in her work. Recently, she has put together a dvd for Tawzer video on dog-dog leash encounters and working with fake dogs,too. Thanking you in advance!

When I moved into my new home I decorated the powder room off the mud room with a Bernese Mountain Dog motif. I had included a fake Berner sitting next to a dog bowl. It was amazing how many of my human guests reacted with alarm.

My initial use of fake dogs was a darling stuffed Golden to model harnesses and various head halters to students. I noticed some varying responses among the class dogs…from raise -head-yawn-put- head- back -down to high pitched alarm barking, and in a few cases, attempts to rush the lovely “Goldee.” I started integrating her in my initial evaluations of dogs with reported aggression problems. She experienced everything form being ignored to being humped to being severely savaged by a dog who did not seem interested if she was real or not.

As years have gone by and the use of fake dogs seemed to be discovered as an evaluation/training tool, I have retired the old girl and replaced her with the new and improved models. Though I still use them as part of my initial eval of dogs with aggression histories, I get most value using them as models when teaching teams escape strategies.

The interaction can be helpful but should not be taken as etched in stone. I have seen reportedly dog agressive dogs approach the canine placebo with fluid gait, relaxed face and calmly give the fake a calm once-over, and follow up with a look at me or turn to the owner voluntarily. That same dog may be seen approaching a real canine in the same way and everything seems fine until real dog makes a subtle move that sets the patient off. Communication skills missing from our edgy guy in a big way.

On a happy note, fake dogs can be fun. The most entertainment value I get is seeing the look on owner’s faces when their dog, who they were convinced would not fall for such an obvious ruse, reacts…sometimes in a big way…to the fake dog. But I am a single women in a small VA town and am probably easily amused.

Many years ago at a large dog show my perfect & charming beagle spotted a bowl of dog food at the front of a trade stand. He rushed over to it and as he came round the corner realised there was a basset with it’s nose next to the bowl. He immediately back pedalled with a ‘I beg your pardon’ look on his face and carried on walking past. Basset was, of course, a stuffie.

I suspect that it all depends on the dog’s previous experience with stuffed toys. I would expect that a dog brought up with children’s toys around the house would pretty soon recognise the stuffed dog as a fake.
Having seen ‘temperament tests” done by the RSPCA here on TV, I strongly recommend that NOBODY ever allows their dogs to tear up stuffed toys. I saw a nice little Staffie being led away as a ‘failed dog” because she was wary of a large doll. “She’s scared of the doll, therefore she is probably scared of children and if she is scared of children she might bite them !” Pathetic!
So I bought some realistic looking dolls — a baby and a toddler — to use in Class for “Pound Proofing” dogs.

That being said many decades ago, we bought a lovely cast iron crab — life sized (good eating size, that is) that was in natural moving stance. Our little dog was fearfully afraid of it — until she summed up the courage to investigate it 🙂
Then few years ago when we stopped at “New Italy” (an Italian museum./café complex) there was life sized statue of a shepherd with a Spinone. My Kelpie was very alarmed — he never really approved “dogs” — he was convinceed he was a little boy 🙂

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About the Author

Patricia B. McConnell, PhD, CAAB is an applied animal behaviorist who has been working with, studying, and writing about dogs for over twenty-five years. She encourages your participation, believing that your voice adds greatly to its value. She enjoys reading every comment, and adds her own responses when she can.

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